Month: March 2010

The NHL and Colin Campbell have been heavily criticized over the past week for not suspending Matt Cooke for his hit on Marc Savard. It is funny how once again things are lining up perfectly for the NHL to look foolish. Take a look at these two hits and decide for yourself which one is worse:

The two hits happened pretty much at the same spot on the ice and the same distance from the boards. The only difference is that it looks like Ovechkin’s push is harder than Lapierre’s. Maxim Lapierre was suspended four games for this hit on Scott Nichol on March 4th. Many agreed that it was excessive especially considering Matt Cooke was not suspended for a hit that was much more dangerous. Maxim Lapierre was a first-time offender and had never been suspended before that hit while Ovechkin was suspended for two games earlier this year. Scott Nichol missed one game due to the injury while Brian Campbell will likely be out for the rest of the year. Those are two of the criteria that the NHL supposedly considers when giving out suspensions, and in both cases, Ovechkin is in a worse situation.

With all that said, the NHL has two choices: look ridiculous or suspend its best player for at least four games. We’ll find out in a few days what they decide to do.

If you could take any goalie in the NHL for a playoff run, you would probably choose Martin Brodeur or Roberto Luongo or possibly Ryan Miller because of his excellent season. Yesterday I wrote an article about Ilya Kovalchuk’s value and did some calculations to see who were the top scorers in the past three years in the NHL. I thought those statistics were an excellent indicator of who the best forwards are right now in the NHL. I figured it would be interesting to do the same thing for goalies and see who the best goalies in the NHL have been in the past three years.

I decided to take all goalies who have played over 5,000 minutes in the past three years and sorted them my save percentage:
1 – Craig Anderson – 0.925 – 2.49 – 6103 mins
2 – Tomas Vokoun – 0.924 – 2.52 – 10691 mins
3 – Tim Thomas – 0.924 – 2.33 – 8872 mins
4 – Jonas Hiller – 0.919 – 2.49 – 6627 mins
5 – Ryan Miller – 0.918 – 2.46 – 11300 mins
6 – Roberto Luongo – 0.918 – 2.39 – 10663 mins
7 – Ty Conklin – 0.917 – 2.54 – 5230 mins
8 – Niklas Backstrom – 0.917 – 2.41 – 10437 mins
9 – Martin Brodeur – 0.917 – 2.28 – 10115 mins
10 – Henrik Lundqvist – 0.916 – 2.37 – 11850 mins

Surprise, surprise! Craig Anderson? Tomas Vokoun? Tim Thomas? Those three goalies have saved 0.5% more shots than any other goalie in the NHL over the past three years. These stats are extremely intriguing but of course we have to take a closer look as we do with all statistics.

I decided to look at the shots for and against for each team at home and on the road. The following chart shows the top five and bottom five for total shots (for + against) at home divided by total shots on the road over the last three years:
1 – Colorado – 1.07
2 – Nashville – 1.05
3 – Anaheim – 1.05
4 – Tampa Bay – 1.05
5 – Florida – 1.04
26 – Vancouver – 0.96
27 – Pittsburgh – 0.96
28 – Minnesota – 0.94
29 – New Jersey – 0.93
30 – St. Louis – 0.92

A higher number means that the total number of shots at home is higher than on the road. There are two possible reasons for this: the home statistician counts more shots than the average statistician or the team plays a more open game at home. In order to rule out the second theory, I compared those numbers with total games at home and on the road and there was no correlation between the two. It could be true for a small number of teams but I’ll assume it’s not the case.

I decided to recalculate the save percentages in the past three seasons with adjustments based on the numbers above. Here are the new adjusted rankings:
1 – Tim Thomas – 0.924
2 – Craig Anderson – 0.923
3 – Tomas Vokoun – 0.923
4 – Martin Brodeur – 0.920
5 – Niklas Backstrom – 0.920
6 – Roberto Luongo – 0.919
7 – Ty Conklin – 0.918
8 – Jonas Hiller – 0.917
9 – Ryan Miller – 0.917
10 – Henrik Lundqvist – 0.915

Although these adjustments moved Martin Brodeur up the list, he is still behind the top three of Tim Thomas, Craig Anderson and Tomas Vokoun. One could argue that Tim Thomas and Craig Anderson haven’t been solid for a long enough period of time to be considered amongst the best but what about Tomas Vokoun? Let’s compare Vokoun’s numbers over the past five years with Luongo’s and Brodeur’s:
Tomas Vokoun – 289 GP – 26 SO – 2.53 GAA – 142 Wins – 0.923 Save%
Martin Brodeur – 322 GP – 33 SO – 2.32 GAA – 191 Wins – 0.917 Save%
Roberto Luongo – 335 GP – 28 SO – 2.49 GAA – 185 Wins – 0.918 Save%

As you can see, Vokoun has played nearly as many games as the other two and has a better save percentage. The only advantage that Brodeur and Luongo have is that they are on much better teams, and hence, have more wins and a lower goals against average.

Sure Vokoun has only made the playoffs twice in his career and has never made it past the first round but Luongo hasn’t had much more success. Roberto Luongo now has an Olympic gold medal but Vokoun was dominant in the Vancouver Olympics. Unfortunately for him, the Czechs didn’t score enough goals and he didn’t receive the credit he deserved for his performances.

It is surprising that no NHL team made a move for Vokoun at the deadline because, in my opinion, it is obvious that Vokoun should be in the discussion for the best goalie in the NHL. If a GM from a contending team has the guts to trade for him and his 5.7M cap hit in the off-season, it could really pay off.

Ilya Kovalchuk has had a bit of a quiet start with the New Jersey Devils but he somewhat picked it up last night scoring a goal and two assists in a 3-1 victory against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Kovalchuk now has 11 points in 11 games with the Devils and 69 points in 60 games this season. Atlanta Thrashers GM Don Waddell said that Kovalchuk turned down a 12-year contract worth 101 million dollars but is he worth that much?

Since coming back from the lockout, Kovalchuk has scored at least 40 goals in every season (he probably will again this year) and had missed only ten games in the past four seasons. I decided to look at the points per game scored in the past three seasons (2007-08 to 2009-10) to see where Kovalchuk ranks:
1 – Alex Ovechkin – 1.44
2 – Sidney Crosby – 1.32
3 – Evgeni Malkin – 1.28
4 – Marian Gaborik – 1.15
5 – Joe Thornton – 1.13
6 – Ilya Kovalchuk – 1.13
7 – Pavel Datsyuk – 1.10
8 – Ryan Getzlaf – 1.09
9 – Jarome Iginla – 1.09
10 – Henrik Sedin – 1.07

When looking at that, it is obvious that the group of Ovechkin, Crosby and Malkin is well-above the rest and Kovalchuk falls in the next group. Let’s now take a look at the top ten in goals per games played:
1 – Alex Ovechkin – 0.75
2 – Ilya Kovalchuk – 0.6
3 – Marian Gaborik – 0.58
4 – Dany Heatley – 0.53
5 – Sidney Crosby – 0.52
6 – Jarome Iginla – 0.5
7 – Alexander Semin – 0.49
8 – Zach Parise – 0.47
9 – Rick Nash – 0.47
10 – Marian Hossa – 0.47

As you can see, Ovechkin is obviously on top but Kovalchuk is in second just ahead of Gaborik and well-ahead of Heatley, Crosby, Iginla and others.

Kovalchuk has been much more of a goal scorer than a passer in the NHL but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at his statistics in international play as well. In the past three World Championships and in the 2010 Olympics, he has recorded 10 goals and 22 assists in 30 games. Although it is a small sample, it could suggest that Kovalchuk is capable of passing the puck, but, in Atlanta, he’s been more of a goal scorer because of the talent surrounding him.

Looking at the statistics from the last three years that I presented, Marian Gaborik is the closest to Kovalchuk in both goals and points per game. Last season, Gaborik signed a deal worth 37.5 million over five years or 7.5 million per season. The difference between the two however, is that Kovalchuk has played at least 78 games in each of the past six seasons while Gaborik had not played 78 games in a season since 2002-03.

Ovechkin’s cap hit is currently 9.538 million while Crosby’s and Malkin is 8.7 million. The problem when comparing Kovalchuk with these players is that Ovechkin, Crosby and Malkin are much younger and their contracts were signed as Restricted Free Agents. For the final seven years of his twelve-year deal, Ovechkin will be making 10 million a year so we can use that as a ceiling. If we look at the next four highest paid players: Eric Staal, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Dany Heatley all have a cap hit of at least 7.5 million. There are also a number of players making above 8 million dollars a year but who have front-loaded contracts: Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, Jason Spezza and Daniel Briere, all of whom had proven much less than Kovalchuk when signing their long-term deals.

If we put all that together, we know Kovalchuk is worth less than 10 million per season (Ovechkin) but is worth more than 8 million per season. In my opinion, Kovalchuk is worth about 72 million over the next eight seasons right now but the contract will probably be extended to ten to twelve seasons in order to reduce the cap hit. With all that said, I expect Kovalchuk to get an offer of about 85 million over ten years and in my opinion he is well worth it.

Ilya Kovalchuk however has a very interesting opportunity to increase his value while playing with the Devils. He has the opportunity to show that he is not a pure goal scorer, that he can succeed outside of Atlanta and that he can play well in the playoffs. If he does all that, it will be much easier for a GM to offer him 90 million over the next ten years.

Yesterday I looked at the Eastern Conference Standings and saw that the playoff race may not be as close as it seems right now. Because of injuries and trades there will probably only be one spot available with a couple of teams fighting for it. At first look it seems that in the Western Conference there are three teams fighting for the final two spots.

My predictions are purely based on the strength of schedule (including home and away games). To find out the exact method used, just take a look at yesterday’s post. With that said, here are my Predicted Western Conference Standings:

1 – San Jose – 116
2 – Chicago – 114
3 – Vancouver – 104
4 – Phoenix – 103
5 – Los Angeles – 102
6 – Colorado – 97
7 – Nashville – 95
8 – Detroit – 94
9 – Calgary – 93
10 – St Louis – 88
11 – Dallas – 86
12 – Minnesota – 84
13 – Anaheim – 83
14 – Columbus – 78
15 – Edmonton – 61

You’ll notice that Colorado has a much tougher schedule than Nashville, Detroit and Calgary as they are expected to finish only three points ahead of Detroit, despite their six points lead at the moment. It is however quite clear that, when looking at those predicted standings, there are four teams fighting for three spots. In my opinion, the Nashville Predators are the one with the best chance to find themselves in ninth place at the end of the year.

The Eastern Conference is once again very close this season and still has five or six teams fighting for two or three playoff spots. The schedule for each of these teams in these final weeks is extremely important and could decide whether or not a team makes the playoffs. So far this season, the home team has earned on average 0.24 more points than the away team so a team like the Ottawa Senators with ten road games and only five home games left, could struggle down the stretch.

The other important factor to look at obviously is the strength of opponents. In order to do this I separated all teams into six tiers based on the points per game earned so far this season. I did some analysis and a one-tier difference will mean that the team in the higher tier will earn on average 0.2 more points than the team in the lower tier. In other words, if a top-tier team (Washington, San Jose or Chicago) hosts a bottom-tier team (Toronto or Edmonton), they will earn on average 1.74 pts per game while the bottom-tier team will earn 0.5. This seems pretty accurate since the top-tier teams have 25 points in 14 games so far this year against Toronto and Edmonton.

After coming up with all those formulas, I calculated the expected average points for each team for the games left and added them up to their points total so far this season. Here are my Predicted Eastern Conference Standings:

1 – Washington – 118
2 – Pittsburgh – 103
3 – Buffalo – 102
4 – New Jersey – 102
5 – Ottawa – 96
6 – Philadelphia – 93
7 – Montreal – 88
8 – Boston – 87
9 – Atlanta – 84
10 – NY Rangers – 82
11 – Tampa Bay – 82
12 – Florida – 80
13 – Carolina – 77
14 – NY Islanders – 74
15 – Toronto – 69

There are obviously a number of factors that could affect these, the most important one being injuries. It is safe to assume that the top seven teams in those standings will qualify for the playoffs considering the Canadiens have had injuries all season long and should welcome back Mike Cammalleri and Marc-Andre Bergeron very soon. The Boston Bruins could however be in trouble after the injury to Marc Savard and the Atlanta Thrashers could also finish lower than expected (despite their easier schedule) after trading Ilya Kovalchuk. That eighth and final spot could therefore belong to the New York Rangers or even the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Check back tomorrow to see my Predicted Western Conference Standings.

Hits to the head have been discussed for the past few years in the NHL and it is now becoming more and more likely that a rule will be added next year to prevent such hits. Here are videos from the two hits this season that have generated all this talk. First was the hit by Mike Richards on David Booth and more recently the hit by Matt Cooke on Marc Savard:

David Booth and Marc Savard are two excellent hockey players that were knocked out and missed or will miss a number of games because of the effects of a hit to the head. The first question to ask ourselves is whether or not these hits add anything to the game? You can see that after each of these hits, very few people are cheering and everyone is worried about the player laying down on the ice. No one likes to see a player get injured.

I also find it very interesting to ask ourselves why elbowing has been penalized in the NHL for a very long time? The answer is pretty obvious: it’s very easy to generate power with an elbow and it’s also a part of the body that is quite hard and can severely injure someone. However, now that the equipment has changed, it doesn’t really matter how hard the elbow is. If you have hockey equipment near you, take a look at your shoulder pads and your elbow pads, I’d bet that both are as hard and you wouldn’t like to get hit with either of those. One might still argue that it’s easier to generate power with an elbow than a shoulder but when a player is coming at full speed near center ice, a player doesn’t need to generate any additional power; simply stick the elbow out and the player will get knocked down.

The reason I bring that up is that everyone is looking at the Cooke hit to see if he hit him with the elbow or the shoulder but does it really matter? Both elbow pads and shoulder pads are very hard and can make as much damage. There is no way that the NHL would ever allow elbows to the head but then why are shoulders to the head still allowed?

These hits are dangerous and add absolutely nothing to the game. I’d even say they take away from the game because they injure players who fans pay to see on the ice. It seems that the NHL will finally deal with this issue, better late than never.

Calgary Flames have acquired Steve Staios from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Aaron Johnson and a 3rd round pick.

Calgary Flames have traded Dustin Boyd to the Nashville Predators for a 4th round pick.

Edmonton Oilers trade Lubomir Visnovski to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Ryan Whitney and a 6th round pick. Interesting deal considering both are signed for 3 years, Oilers save 1.6M in cap room.

Carolina Hurricanes trade Andrew Alberts to the Vancouver Canucks for a 7th round pick.

Anaheim Ducks acquire Joey MacDonald from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a 7th round pick in 2011.

Florida Panthers acquire Mathieu Roy from the Columbus Blue Jackets for Matt Rust.

Toronto Maple Leafs acquire Chris Peluso from the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 6th round pick.